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BUFFALO—Winning goal or no winning goal, Mikhail Grabovski should not have been on the ice to score for that 4-3 win over the Boston Bruins on Tuesday, according to retired NHL star Keith Primeau.

And going back out Wednesday night sends the wrong signal to kids, says Primeau, whose career was cut short by concussions.

“Even though he may not be showing symptoms of a concussion, it’s important in incidents like that to err on the side of caution,” said Primeau, who now promotes concussion awareness at the youth hockey level through Play It Cool.

The incidents Primeau is referring were the hits Grabovski suffered at the shoulder of Boston’s behemoth defenceman Zdeno Chara. After the first one, Grabovski was slow to get off the ice. After the second, Grabovski wobbled and looked woozy

Leafs head therapist Andy Playter conducted a standard concussion test — as mandated by the league — and allowed Grabovski to continue to play. Primeau believes the league’s mandate is flawed.

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“I don’t think in the course of a couple of minutes do we have enough knowledge to say that he is okay,” said Primeau. “I know what he’s thinking, I’ve lived it. He wants to show courage. But that doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do.”

Spotted using smelling salts and laughing after the second hit, Grabovski went back out on the ice in the last two minutes and scored the winning goal on an end-to-end rush.

“I feel bruise in my eyes but like I tell it before, it gives me more motivation to play harder. I’m fine,” Grabovski told reporters after the game.

English is Grabovski’s second language, and he can sometimes be hard to understand. Some people think he meant “birds” in his eyes, not “bruise.”

GM Brian Burke defended the decision to allow Grabovski to go back on the ice.

“When you see a player getting up like a young colt, kind of rubber-legged, your first assumption is he must have got his bell rung,” Burke told the FAN590. “Our fans should understand our concussion protocol when a player comes back to the bench, especially when it’s apparent where everyone in the building sees it might have been a headshot.

“Our trainer, Andy Playter, is first rate. (He) went right to Grabovski and said: ‘How are you?’ He had total recall. He said that puck hit the crossbar. He had total recall of the situation, no blackout, no loss of memory, no dizziness, no nausea.

“When he (Playter) asked if he was good to go, he (Grabovski) said: ‘Yeah, got it in the jaw.’ No symptoms.”

The Leafs followed what’s called Standardized Concussion Assessment Tool 2 (SCAT 2) protocol: asking a series of questions that demonstrated the players ability to think. If the player answers wrong, or struggles answering, he’s pulled from the game. The player is asked if he has a headache, or feels sick, or sees lights. If he answers yes to any of the signs of a concussion, he’s pulled from the game.

But athletes are competitive and can lie. It then falls to the examiner to make the call based on his quick review of the player.

“You can’t ask a player if he’s okay,” said Dr. Paul Echlin, author of a study on the effects of concussions in junior hockey. “He’s conditioned to say he’s okay. If you have any questions, he’s out of the game and he sees a physician the next day to figure it out.”

Echlin declined to comment directly on the Leafs’ decision or Grabovski, but he did advocate a change in culture to err on the side of caution.

“It shouldn’t be a matter of a win or loss; it should be a matter of athlete safety,” said Echlin. “One game, one period, one practice, does not a life make.

“We want to stop these multi-concussions. When you have a concussion, the brain rotates. There may be some neural damage, maybe some vascular damage. You get changes in the brain,” Echlin said.

“If you don’t get the guy out and allow him to recover, he’ll get hit again. It will become a chronic situation. You get to be 40, you can’t concentrate, you can’t work.”

Those who research concussions say there’s a growing body of evidence to suggest a player who is suspected of having been concussed is more vulnerable to a second concussion in the week following the first blow. That may apply to Sidney Crosby’s case — he was hit twice in three days and remains out of Pittsburgh’s lineup. But, the experts say it is not yet generally accepted that that is the case.

Dr. Charles H. Tator, a professor of neurosurgery at the University of Toronto, says diagnosing a concussion depends on the expertise of the examiner, and although hockey people — including coaches, trainers and parents — may suspect a concussion, that diagnosis should be left to a health care professional, preferably a doctor.

“Hits to the head like those thrown at Grabovski should be banned,” he says. “We are eating up the brains of our stars.”

The fact Grabovski scored the winning goal so dramatically makes Primeau’s message all the harder to sell to kids.

“We’re trying to say there’s a real risk here when you return, we’re trying to prevent concussion as well as prevent long-term repercussions,” said Primeau. “It’s a tough sell when you take it to parents and they have the ability to say, “Yeah, but...”

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